đŁïž This Week in Spain: How do you say 'Drama' in Catalan?
Also sad footballers, a battle elephant and maybe cancel your move to Andorra?
By @IanMount and @AdrianBono | September 21, 2023 | Madrid | Issue #29
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đ„ This Week in a Nutshell: Happy first day of autumn! All hell broke loose in Parliament on Tuesday after MPs started using co-official languages on the floor, irritating the right-wing parties and causing the biggest language confusion and work disruption since the Tower of Babel.
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You say âtomatoâ, I say âGo f*** yourselfâ
Madrid Goes Full Babel
Borja SĂ©mper, a Basque Country-born bigwig in Spainâs center-right PP, spoke a few sentences in Basque (or Euskera, as the language is known in Basque) from the speakerâs dais in parliament on Tuesday.Â
Not to celebrate the new approval of the use of Spainâs âco-officialâ languages (Euskera, Catalan and Gallego) but in order to criticize MPs for using these regional languages instead of the Castilian Spanish that all Spaniards know and share.Â
Other MPs laughed, clapped, or booed. The parliamentâs speaker repeatedly asked for silence. And the members of far-right Vox, theoretically allies of the PP, walked outâfor the second time in the day.
So, yeah, languages are a big deal in Spain. Or a tense subject. Or the third rail. What you speak is identity. Who you areâand who you arenât. You get the idea.
This all, of course, comes back to politics. As we wrote last week, the approval of the use of co-official languages in parliament was a condition set by the Catalan pro-independence parties ERC and Junts in exchange for supporting the election of former Balearic Islands president Francina Armengol (of the PSOE socialists) as parliament speaker last month.
But now itâs happened and it (predictably) was a mess! Vox walked out the first time in protest of the use of the co-official languages, after PSOE deputy JosĂ© RamĂłn Besteiro became the first to use one when he began speaking in Gallego.Â
One by one, the Vox MPs left the earpieces (pinganillos) theyâd been given to listen to the translation of the co-official languages on the seat of caretaker Prime Minister Pedro SĂĄnchez (see video above).
Fun fact: Parliament is expected to spend up to âŹ280,000 on translation through the end of the year, including tech, interpreters, and so on.Â
Besteiro was the first but far from the last. Marta Lois of Sumar, the PSOEâs far-left partner party, also spoke in Gallego, and suggested that people all over Spain study the co-official languages (not a bad idea, tbh). Maite Aizpurua, spokesperson of the Basque-separatist EH Bildu, spoke in Euskera, as did Joseba Andoni Agirretxea, of the PNV Basque nationalists.
But it was Gabriel RufiĂĄn of the left-leaning ERC Catalan separatists whose speech in Catalan attracted the most attention. Not because of what he said (Castilian isnât persecuted in Catalonia, CatalĂĄn speakers arenât all separatists, etc etc), but for how he said it.Â
While RufiĂĄn may be a Catalan nationalist, he is also the Catalonia-born son of Andalusians whose first language is Castilian, and it seems like his command of the CatalĂĄn language isâŠnot great. âIn all seriousness, I am CatalĂĄn and I find it hard to understand him,â said one observer, while another mused, âRufiĂĄn speaks Catañolâ and another said âRufiĂĄn speaks CatalĂĄn as well as [Sumar boss] Yolanda DĂaz does Englishâ (ouch!).
Most cutting was PP deputy Cayetana Ălvarez de Toledo (aka the Spanish rightâs Cruella de Vil) who wrote on X (nĂ© Twitter), âUnexpected technical difficulty: RufiĂĄn has to be translated to CatalĂĄnâ.
But while the parliamentary floor in Madrid was all fun and games (and talk about how allowing in the co-official languages was either a long overdue recognition of Spainâs cultural diversity or a divisive scam that would break the country into tiny pieces), Prime Minister Pedro SĂĄnchezâs bid to bring Spainâs multiple-personality identity crisis to Europeâs main stage didnât go quite as well.Â
You see, one of his other promises to get the votes he needs to repeat as PM was to push CatalĂĄn, Euskera and Gallego as official EU languagesâmeaning they could be used in the European Parliament and EU documents would be translated into them.
Letâs just say that there was some reticence among the Europeans. As we also noted last week,  several countries pushed back on adding them to the 24 already there, (because, expensive) and because it could open the door to even more languages (even more expensive). Last year, the European Commission spent âŹ355 million on translations, and they maybe arenât super-excited about upping that.Â
Spain holds the Presidency of the Council of the European Union right now, offering SĂĄnchez a perfect opportunity to bring up the issues. But the other countries on the council nixed Spainâs desperate push for a swift addition of the three languages, even after Spain said please please weâll even pay for the cost and you can do it slowly and and andâŠ.Â
âNo one can expect a decision to be taken in Brussels in one morning on a proposal whose paper version has just reached us that same day," the Irish representative said, according to El Español, while another diplomat complained âTheyâve brought a national problem to the European level.âÂ
Spainâs foreign minister JosĂ© Manuel Albares then apparently suggested the EU just push CatalĂĄn through for now, which sorta makes it obvious whose votes SĂĄnchez needs to repeat as PM (and seems to have royally ticked off Basque leaders).Â
EU diplomats threw up their hands at the end, saying that they could return to the subject in three months. "It is not just about the issue of Catalan: we are changing the logic of the EU linguistic regime and that can have an impact on dozens of other regional languages,â one said, according to El Español. âThis is opening Pandora's box."
In other words: No go, Pedro. (Or as RufiĂĄn might say, âDe cap manera, Pereâ.)
The question now is how (if at all) this Euro setback will affect PM Pedro SĂĄnchezâs chance at another term. Carles Puigdemont, the boss of Catalan separatist party Junts now living in the Brussels suburbs, apparently thinks enough has been done, giving the PSOE room for optimism. So maybe âYes go, Pedroâ? Weâll see next month.
Last minute addition: on Thursday morning, Parliament voted in favor of approving the use of co-official languages (PP and Vox voted against it).
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đŹ Five things to discuss at dinner parties this week
1. đ Spainâs unhappy footballersÂ
Most of us would be totally thrilled to be called up to Spainâs international womenâs soccer squadâmost of us, that is, except the actual members of Spainâs international womenâs soccer squad.
Itâs been one month since they won the 2023 Womenâs World Cup and less than that since their hated coach Jorge Vilda and non-consensual kissing football association boss Luis Rubiales were fired and resigned (respectively).Â
Now the team is back in action with a game Friday against Sweden as it tries to advance in the UEFA Womenâs Nations League.Â
You might think that theyâd be happy to play after getting rid of the widely loathed Rubiales and Vilda. Youâd also be wrong.
When new womenâs coach MontsĂ© TomĂ© published the list of tapped footballers, there was immediate and fierce pushback from the footballers and their friends. Why?
Of the 23 players TomĂ© called up, 15 had been on the championship World Cup team. More importantly, 20 had signed a petition slamming the Spanish RFEF soccer federationâexpressing their âenormous discontentâ with the federationâs treatment of women and demanding five specific, and extensive, changes before they returned to the national team.
The players who signed that petition then released another after TomĂ© released her list, reiterating their âfirm desire not to be called up.ââi.e. they planned to strike against the national team until the changes were made.
Thatâs when things got ugly. Really very unpleasant, actually. It came out that players who did not show up when named to the national team could face a fine of up to âŹ30,000 and other penalties. Also, Jenni Hermoso, the player on the receiving end of Rubialesâ non-consensual kiss, was not called upâleaving people to wonder if she was being punished.
Ana Crnogorcevic, a Swiss footballer who plays in Spain, lashed out at the call-up on X (nĂ© Twitter): âThis is insane⊠how can you threaten your own player like thisâŠđł call them to the national team, when they said they want clear changes before they come back! this is soooo disrespectful⊠clearly they donât care⊠and they donât allow them to make their own decision.â
And Jenni Hermoso herself asked the obvious questionââProtect me from what, and from whom?ââwhen TomĂ© said sheâd left the star off the list to âprotect her.â (TomĂ© also said âI am not Jorge Vildaâ, which is demonstrably true but not nearly as interesting.)
So no players showed up and it was crazy, right? Fight!
Well, actually no. The players did show up (stone-facedâsee video above) on Tuesday after, you know, being chosen against their will and learning that they could be fined. And following a series of long, late-night meetings with the RFEF and Spainâs sports minister, all except two agreed to end their boycott in exchange for a âseries of agreementsâ regarding changes to the RFEF.Â
The pair who refused to playâBarcelonaâs Mapi LeĂłn and Patri Guijarroâwere assured they would not be punished.
Now itâs off to Sweden to play. The last time the team was at war with the RFEF, they won the World Cup, so the unhappiness/grumbling acceptance might seem like good news for counterintuitive motivational types, but itâs really unlikely to work that way repeatedly. Spanish football really needs to fix itself, right?
2. đ¶ GDP not so bad but, really, still sorta bad
Spainâs national statistics agency revised the countryâs pandemic-era (2020-22) GDP numbers upwards by 1.3%, a move that in turn lowered the countryâs debt-to-GDP ratio from around 112% to under 110%.Â
Stronger-than-estimated economic recovery? Less debt? Undeniably great news, right? Well, yeah. Sorta. BecauseâŠpolitics, and statistics.
It seems bizarre at first glance that Spainâs data was so off, but itâs really not. At times of great uncertainty, the first numbers are normally wrong. And economists had been pointing out that the weak economic growth numbers being reported didnât fit with the booming jobs numbers being reported at the same time. In other words, the revision makes sense.
The upwards revision was especially driven by higher-than-estimated household consumption in 2021, and higher exports in 2022.
Now, time to define the narrative (the relato, as they say in the Spanish papers).Â
For the government of Pedro SĂĄnchez, this was a time for chest-beating (âMore and higher quality growthâ they wrote) about how their employment-protecting policies had been the right ones, and that the rightâs talk about Spain being last-in-line in the EU and not recovering its pre-pandemic GDP until 2023 had been wrong (it actually recovered in 2022).Â
Even better, the SĂĄnchez folks (and those who love them) pointed out, Spain would even be one of the leading big-EU economies based on the EUâs 2023 predictions. Exhibit A:
âBut, but, butâŠâ said the right. Conservative economists like Daniel Lacalle and Lorenzo Bernaldo de QuirĂłs said that almost every country was revising their numbers upwards, and once that was taken into account, Spain was still at the back of the line in terms of COVID recovery.Â
Other countries indeed did revise their own numbers up. The U.K. by 1.7%, the Netherlands by 1.3%, and Italy by 1.8-2.1%. Only France revised down.
Sorry to say it, but in the end itâs a muddle. Spain was less of a disaster than feared, but itâs not a world-beater either. We did fine. C+/B-. It could be worse. (Again, sorry, not really invigorating is it?)
3.đ AI used to create deepfakes of underaged girls in Extremadura
The town of Almendralejo, in Badajoz, is in an uproar over a serious scandal that involves a group of teenagers and deep fakes that could become a serious case of child pornography and is going up all the way up to the European Union.
This week the police began investigating at least 22 reports regarding photos of teenage girls that had been manipulated using artificial intelligence to make them appear naked (AKA âdeepfakesâ) and had been disseminated on social media. The reports were filed by the parents of the victims featured in the images, who are between 12 and 14 years old.
The police indicated that the perpetrators are the same age as the victims and âat first glance, everything points to them being from the victimsâ environmentâ. As some of them are already 14 years old, they might be criminally accountable, at least according to Spainâs Juvenile Criminal Law, explained Javier Izquierdo, the head of the Minor Protection Group of the Central Cybercrime Unit.
The boys who created the images apparently generated them using an AI program, and then disseminated them via WhatsApp and Telegram groups until some of the victimsâ relatives came across them and sounded the alarm.
Local authorities have warned that if the images are realistic, even if they are manipulated, they can be considered child pornography.
Izquierdo explained that unaccountable minors (those under 14 years old) are not subject to the Minorâs Law so itâs up to the Prosecutorâs Office to decide what kind of punishment they should get for their actions.
If the suspects were of adult age, âthe sentences for the production of child pornography range from 2 to 5 yearsâ in prison. And if the victims are under 16 years old, âthe penalty is aggravated from 5 to 9 years,â he explained.
The case was so big it even Acting Digital Transformation Minister Nadia Calviño got involved and commented on the case without directly mentioning it, saying it was âurgentâ for the EU to approve the new regulation on artificial intelligence.
"In our country right now, there is a great concern regarding the issue of artificial intelligence (...) and that is why I think it is essential that we approve this regulation because it precisely guarantees, among other elements, that there is a watermark on images that have been manipulated using artificial intelligence," she said.
4.đŠđ© Rich Youtubers foreigners are ruining Andorra
A few years ago, Spanish YouTubers began a mass exodus to the tiny country of Andorra, where they would set up residence because of its lower tax levels (for some reason, many influencers suddenly turn libertarian when they start making money).
But when people started migrating to the neighboring principality en masse, it caused a real estate boom that increased housing prices to such an extreme that now Andorrans are dealing with a massive housing crisis. And the local government has had enough, so this month they enacted a moratorium that temporarily bans foreigners from buying property.
Property sale prices in Andorra have jumped 12.8% between Q4 of 2022 and Q1 of 2023. That is quite a jump. And according to opposition leader Cerni EscalĂ© it is forcing âsome citizens to leave the countryâ because they canât afford to live there anymore.
The head of the government, Xavier Espot, said the moratorium was âtemporaryâ and would remain in place until âaffordable rental housing can be builtâ and that it sought to avoid âan influx of real estate transactionsâ while the government discusses the specificsâ of their tax schemes that so many Youtubers are loving so much.
Andorra has seen a 20% population increase in just the last 10 years: it went from 69,966 inhabitants in 2013 to 83,990 in 2023.
The problem is that salaries in the principality are low but property prices have skyrocketed (again, thanks Youtubers!) as lots of rich people are moving there attracted by the countryâs âway of life, security and healthcare,â explained Conxita Marsol, the Minister of Presidency and Housing of the Andorran government.
Itâs estimated that there are approximately 3,000 vacant rental houses in Andorra. But people living there canât afford them. As 33-year-old electrician DamiĂ Sifreu told eldiario.es, âWe are going from the Andorra where you could buy things at good prices to the luxurious Andorra. It seems like we're becoming a Monaco or Luxembourg, but with low salaries."
Most of the new properties being built are âintended for foreigners, not for residentsâ. In a country in which salaries are stagnant, thatâs kind of a recipe for disaster.
Maybe they should try becoming YouTube influencers. Then they could maybe afford one.
5. đ Wanted: Julius Caesar's fighting elephant
Never has installing hospital radiation therapy machines turned into something so exciting! Back in 2019, Amancio Ortega (you know, the bazillionaire who founded Zara), donated âŹ40m to install high-tech machinery in Spanish hospitals. Three of the machines were meant for CĂłrdobaâs Reina SofĂa hospital, making it the first in AndalucĂa with the technology.
But there was a problem (there always is). They needed to dig out a cement bunker for the machinery (because radiation). And once they began to excavate, oh did they ever find some stuff!
It seems there was some serious history on the spot. Weâll let AgustĂn LĂłpez JimĂ©nez from ArqueobĂ©tica, the consultancy that ran the archaeological bit, explain: âAt the beginning of the dig we documented structures from the Andalusian Emirate and Caliphate period [8th to 10th centuries]. Beneath them, remains emerged of collapsed adobe walls from the high Iberian period, around the 3rd century B.C.â Â
And under that? Well, under one of these collapsed walls they found the carpal (hand bone) of âan elephant of large proportions''. And, in addition, âwe found 17 catapult projectilesâ.Â
Let the speculation begin! Since the discovery, historians and archeologists have been trying to tease apart what this means.Â
It turns out that the location, the hill of Los Quemados in CĂłrdoba, could have been the main theater of a large-scale battle that involved African elephants.
Even more exciting, the stars of the battle could have been big. Says El PaĂs: âThe Roman Gaius Lucius Marcus took the city, which until then had been in Carthaginian hands, in 206 B.C., and in 45 B.C. Julius Caesar, who was protected by the elephants of the Mauretanian king Bogud, expelled the Pompeians during the Roman Republicâs second civil war. Therefore, the questions are: does the bone come from one of [Carthaginian general] Hannibalâs war elephants or one of Julius Caesarâs?â
Can we really know? Eventually, sure. But they havenât carbon-dated the bone yet. For the moment, we donât know whose army the elephantâs hand found in the heart of CĂłrdoba belongs to. But we can speculate, and thatâs even better.
We know that between 48 and 45 B.C. Caesarâs troops fought around the city of Ulia (todayâs Montemayor) against the soldiers of Pompey the Great and his sons Gnaeus and Sextus. After pitched battles, Caesarâs top general asked for help from King Bogud, who may have arrived with reinforcements, possibly with African elephants. Possibly with this elephantâŠ
For now, the ultimate boss is unclear. But tracking down a âbattle elephantâ in Spain is seriously badass. We mean, donât mess with Texas Spain, right?
đ Before you go, please remember to share this newsletter with your friends on social media. The more we grow, the more information weâll be able to offer each week.
Weâll be back next week with more.
"we donât know ... But we can speculate, and thatâs even better."
10/10.